NEWS

Scottish tech startups make debut in city

21 Oct 2016

ELEVEN technological startups from Scotland, the U.K., participated in a road show at the F518 Fashion and Creative Park in Bao’an District on Thursday, bringing the most cutting-edge technologies from the U.K. to Shenzhen.

The road show was introduced by a program named Engage Invest Exploit (EIE), the largest technology investment platform and program in Scotland and was cohosted by the Edinburgh-Shenzhen Creative Exchange. Shenzhen is the second overseas location, besides Hong Kong, to hold such an event.

EIE is an investment project that was launched by Informatics Ventures, an investment company in Edinburgh. The project has been running for eight years and has successfully raised more than 350 million pounds (US$429.24 million) of capital for its technological startups.

Covering the most heated technological topics such as virtual reality, biomedicine, ecological agriculture and so forth, the road show had attracted over 70 investment institutions and 200 or so technological corporations as of Thursday.

Investors from many well-known investment companies including Sequoia Capital, China Peakedness and Fortune Capital actively commented on the projects introduced by the startups.

Several projects stood out among the others and gained the investors’ interest as well as recognition. In particular, a thermal energy storage company, named Sunamp, wowed many investors. The startup visited Shenzhen once during the China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair this year. The creative exchange helped to organize a suitable meeting for the startup.

Thursday’s road show was embraced by both Shenzhen and Scottish governments as well as other international investment companies, according to the organizers.

Yu Jianfeng, director of Bao’an’s technology and innovation bureau, highly praised the achievements made by EIE in recent years and hoped it could bring more high-end technology companies and operating experience to Bao’an.

Yu also introduced Bao’an District’s next five-year plan to investors and guests in order to invite more investment to the district.

Danny Helson, program manager of Informatics Ventures, also the person in charge of EIE, said that the purpose of Thursday’s road show was to test Shenzhen’s investment and financial environment and that they might have more of these events on the Chinese mainland in the future.

The manager said that they had decided to hold the road show in Shenzhen, because of the city’s young and dynamic atmosphere of technological innovation, and he believed that holding such an event in Shenzhen could provide big benefits for its startups.

The Shenzhen government has invested more than 20 billion yuan (US$2.97 billion) toward encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship since 2015.

According to media reports, Shenzhen is home to a total of 5,247 investment institutions, following Beijing and Shanghai.

Situated in northern U.K., Scotland is a remarkable hub of life sciences, technology and software.